


On Tomorrow

by distr0



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, hardmode, very hardmode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:05:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distr0/pseuds/distr0
Summary: Ryuko frees Satsuki following her failed rebellion.





	

The cuffs dug into her skin when she braced her weight against them. It was the only way to stay breathing. The pull of her body against the chain holding her up compressed her lungs otherwise. For all her years of training, the strength in her arms never failed to falter within two hours of being strung up. But she’d stopped feeling much above her shoulders for close to a week now. The tremors that ran from the tips of her fingers down, and the sudden pain of lead weigh in her muscles every time they lowered her chains were enough of a giveaway that she was in terrible shape.

The door opened just enough for someone to slip into the room before slamming heavily into its frame again. Satsuki raised her head up to make sure it wasn’t her.

It was almost always Hououmaru—she would come in just when Satsuki thought she was going to suffocate from the pressure gripping her ribcage. It sat on her lungs and settled there. A few times she’d lost consciousness, only to be woken with her feet planted on the ground.

They never lowered her enough to be sitting. The most she ever got was enough leeway on the chain holding up her arms to rest against her knees. It afforded her some semblance of a chance at sleep; she could close her eyes and loosen her muscles without struggling to draw a breath, though the edges of the cuffs around her wrists never stopped from forming deeper grooves into her flesh. They, too, were starting to grow numb. It was hard to twist her head up enough to see, but she wouldn’t be surprised to find them infected. Or ground down to the bone. If she were blindfolded, she wouldn’t be able to say for certain whether she still had her hands at all. Maybe the numbness was a blessing.

Ragyo maintained next to no care for her wellbeing. She kept her just well enough not to die, and fed her just enough not to starve. It’s why Hououmaru lowered her chains day in and day out, every few hours, to bring her back to life the second she’d reached her physical limit. And she fed her, and gave her water.

In a twisted way, it gave her hope, because every day that they kept her alive was a day that they needed her still. If Matoi and Nudist Beach were no longer a threat, Ragyo would have no need for Shinra Koketsu. She would be completely disposable. _Maternal kindness._ For the amount of absurdities her mother spewed on a daily basis, she hadn’t heard anything quite as ridiculous as that.

She’d let her knowledge of Shinra Koketsu slip once, nearly on accident. Ragyo hadn’t liked that—she never liked it much when her fun turned into someone else’s. She was used to dealing with her mother’s anger, but being at the forefront of it was something entirely different. Ragyo’s treatment had turned downright cruel. And no matter how many times thereafter Satsuki thought to save herself the consequences and effort of speaking against her, there were some topics that never failed to destroy her composure. She mentioned Matoi too much.

As though she didn’t think of her enough—as though Ragyo needed to repeat it to her every day to keep her from forgetting. There was nothing she could find more difficult to wipe from her head. Matoi. Ryuko. Imouto.

Hououmaru slackened the chains holding her in the air enough for her to stand, and the sudden relief mixed with the pain of feeling her arms again sobered her for an instant. Away from her thoughts. It might have been some sort of defense mechanism, but her body had stopped feeling hungry in the past several days. She still took whatever she was given. Moving, functioning in any way possible helped keep her sane. Exercising against the chains had worked throughout the first week, but that took too much of a toll now. Energy was better spent on surviving, on breathing. So long as she would still be able to walk, or run if her body allowed it, when the right time came along.

But time was another thing entirely. The hole in the ceiling let her measure it in sunlight, but her memory fogged up by the day. Small increments of time—how long Hououmaru stayed in the room with her, how long Ragyo’s visits lasted—were nearly impossible to keep track of. Ragyo never came in more than twice every twenty-four hours, and that was all the information she needed to know on that end of things.

Hououmaru paced away from the cage after ensuring she’d been inflicted no life-threatening trauma since last she came in. The small sound of her footsteps began to recede, and then came the soft rattling of chains. In a moment of either bravery or desperation, Satsuki spoke up.

“Hououmaru.” Her voice was raspy, and it echoed back at her across the room. “Give me five more minutes. Only five.” Her pride wasn’t above her own life, above the chance at a successful strike back operation.

Quiet. And then the sound of the chains loosening to set her feet down on the ground again. She sighed, focusing on the feeling of her breath filling and emptying her lungs. She’d miss the ease of it in the hours to come.

Hououmaru didn’t speak a word when she finally went to pull the chains up properly this time, and paused once before turning away, to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She swung the door farther open on her way out than she did when she came in—enough that Satsuki could catch a glimpse of the windows in the hallway on the other side. She’d nearly forgotten this part of the building offered a view.

* * *

 

A few days latter and a terrible shaking rocked the entire room, the chains in the ceiling, the bars of the cage, the ground she couldn’t find with her feet. It surprised her first, and then a flicker of hope washed away her confusion. She forced herself into alertness, but no matter how hard she tried, couldn’t pull her weight up without her arms shaking. 

This had to work. She would make her own body bend to her will or die trying, because there was no other way she’d be getting out to meet those who’d come to free her. Only a sudden banging against the door seemed to want to prove her otherwise. She stilled, and let her weight fall back down again as she listened to the noises coming from the other side. Not a second later, the heavy metal door fell clean out of its hinges with enough force to shatter the cement floor beneath it. The light streaming in from outside, along with the onslaught of noise, suddenly proved too much stimulation for her to handle after all this time kept in isolation. Her head was spinning. But no matter how fatigued she was, there was no way she’d mistake the figure standing in the doorframe.

“Kiryuin,” Matoi called her name quite unlike the way she usually said it. Satsuki wondered whether it was a curse or a blessing that she be the one to find her. She pulled the door to the cage back with enough force to send it flying across the room, tearing through the lock in the process. “Shit,” she said when she’d gotten close enough to see the state of her. Satsuki couldn’t find the energy to answer.

The sound of metal hitting metal was her only forewarning before the chains holding up her arms suddenly slackened. Her feet hit the ground, and her knees buckled almost instantaneously. Something caught her beneath the arms before she could crumple to the ground.

“C’mon, Kiryuin,” she told her as she tried to haul her up, to steady her. Satsuki realized that she must’ve assumed she’d be able to stand on her own, if she hadn’t moved to catch her sooner. The thought provided some reassurance. Maybe she didn’t look quite as broken as she felt. As broken as she was.

Ryuko lowered her to the ground when she realized standing wouldn’t be an option. Satsuki let herself fall back with her feet folded beneath her, and her arms hanging limp. They felt not a part of her body, like someone had strapped massive weights right to her shoulders.

“Oi, Kiryuin.” She sounded almost angry. Or desperate, afraid. One of the two, but Satsuki couldn’t be sure which. “We gotta get moving. Please. C’mon.” She held out her arms for her to take, long enough that Satsuki understood that she’d have to tell her. She’d almost never been quite so ashamed, so hateful of herself in her life. “This place is gonna collapse any minute now,” Ryuko insisted.

“I can’t,” she said as soon as she found her voice. She refused to look up at her. She didn’t care for pity. “I can’t feel my arms.”

Ryuko looked down at where her hands rested against her thighs, and visibly tried to keep a handle on herself when she noticed them shaking. Satsuki followed her line of sight only to tear her eyes away when she saw how swollen her knuckles had become, how raw her wrists were. They hardly seemed her own hands anymore.

Ryuko cursed violently before desynchronizing with Senketsu, and tearing away his scarf piece from the rest of the outfit. She held out the red piece of fabric before her and muttered his name softly. Immediately the scarf stretched between her hands, and she made to wrap it around Satsuki’s shoulders. A small panic sparked to life in Satsuki’s chest and she drew back. The strain of a Kamui on her body was something she wouldn’t be able to handle while this weakened. It would destroy her.

But Ryuko gave her a look. “Trust us,” she pleaded. Satsuki moved forward again, and let her bundle the makeshift blanket around her. She tucked the ends in carefully to hold him in place, and squeezed Satsuki’s arms gently before pulling away.

“Lean against me,” Ryuko said once she’d turned her back to her. Satsuki did as instructed, and leaned up off the ground to rest herself over her back. Ryuko helped pull her arms around her shoulders, and then reached to hook her legs around her waist. Once she was certain she’d be able to move without knocking Satsuki off balance, she made for the door at a steady jog.

“Make sure she doesn’t fall,” she said over her shoulder as she picked up her pace. It took Satsuki an instant to realize she wasn’t being spoken to, and that Ryuko had just addressed Senketsu, who was bundling the three of them close together. She couldn’t speak to or hear him, but she was certain he was murmuring comforts to her. He cocooned her so safely she wondered what curse she’d befallen to have been left with an article as twisted as Junketsu.

She buried her face down against Ryuko’s shoulder, too weak to keep her head up, too exhausted to even keep her eyes open. It was the first time in two weeks that she felt remotely close to safety.

* * *

 

She woke in a small room hidden away in a ship’s hull. The sound of waves lapping at the other side of the metal wall her bed lay pressed against rocked her gently from her sleep. She was wrapped beneath a heavy blanket, lain against three pillows to keep her upright, and tethered to an IV stand by several tubes hooked into her left arm. 

She didn’t want to try and move her hands just yet—didn’t care to know if they were beyond use. Her neck was fine, though. Sore, but fine. She turned her head to inspect the sparse quarters, and almost startled when she found Ryuko slumped over in a folding chair at the opposite corner of the room. She was sleeping, breathing so softly she could barely make it out over the sound of the ocean around them.

Satsuki studied her a while. It had always been there—in the set of her eyes, the slope of her nose, the slant of her jaw, the curve of her chin, the shape of her lips. She felt a fool for never noticing. Even some of her facial expressions were downright identical to either her own or her mothers, if memory served correctly. She couldn’t remember very much of her father to say the same about their resemblance. For the amount of time she’d spent thinking about the abstract notion of her sister, she marveled at her failing to have made the connection.

The sound of metal grating against metal at the door announced the coming of more company. Senketsu hobbled into the room with the typical awkward shuffle of a Kamui walking about on its own. His eye focused onto Satsuki, and almost instantaneously, Ryuko straightened in her seat, undoubtedly because he’d said something to wake her. She blinked and rubbed her eyes.  

“You’re awake,” she said quickly, stumbling over to the bed. An awkward bit of silence stretched between them, and Satsuki couldn’t figure if she imagined it because she was so tired, or if it was really there—in the way Ryuko’s eyes seemed not to know what to say. Maybe it was only because she’d just been startled out of sleep.

“How long have I been out?” Satsuki asked, voice gravelly.

“Just over two days now.” That wasn’t as much as she might have guessed. Ryuko’s eyes darted over her body despite the visible effort she put into not doing so. “Are you hurting?” She realized it was a dumb question as soon it left her mouth, so she quickly added, “Shit, sorry—Ok, sit tight for a sec, I’m gonna get the medics. They told us to let ‘em know as soon as you woke up.”

Satsuki nodded—it was just about all she really trusted her body to do—and watched as Ryuko made for the door. “I’m leavin’ Senketsu with ya,” she said before exiting. The Kamui hopped up onto a low stool close to her bedside, and sat there, facing away from her, presumably to give her some sense of privacy.

“Senketsu.” It came out sounding almost like a question. Only when he turned to look at her was she certain she’d been heard. “Thank you.” She would have preferred to relay her gratitude with more eloquence, but any more than those two words, and she would have tripped up over it.

* * *

 

Barazo and Aikuro entered the room to present her with what felt like half a million questions. They sat her up on the bed, and reassessed the damage they’d already looked at when she was first brought onto the Naked Sol. Senketsu bowed out at that point so as not to impose. None of the information they provided her came as a great shock—she was malnourished, dehydrated, and fatigued. Small and consistent meals, along with lots of sleep, would help her get back on the right track. She’d lost a significant amount of weight.

“The bruising on your abdomen is so bad we thought you might have some internal damage,” Barazo told her. “But I don’t see any sign of bleeding. A few fractured ribs, though.”

Satsuki inhaled and exhaled slowly, and felt a sharper twinge of pain when her lungs expanded. Her eyes found the IV feeding into her arm and she asked, “How strong are the painkillers I’m on?”

“They’re no joke,” Aikuro said. “We’re switching you to oral ones now that you’re conscious.”

Then came the topic she’d been most dreading. Her hands had lain motionless in her lap for the better part of the conversation thus far—they’d been wrapped loosely with gauze, mostly around her wrists, probably to keep the lacerations there clean. She succeeded in shifting her arms despite their soreness, but her hands and fingers were another matter entirely. She strained to stretch them open. A pain like an electric shock shot up to her elbow and she watched her fingers twitch for a second before curling inward again as she relaxed. A ghost of a tingling sensation remained after she let them fall limp. And then numbness.

“Needless to say, there’s some serious trauma there,” Barazo said as he observed her efforts. “It’ll take time and lots of physical therapy, but you should be able to regain use of your hands. Surgery is always an option, if all else fails.”

“How long?”

“Weeks. Months. It’ll be a constant healing process.” He paused, then stood up slowly from where he’d taken a seat at her bedside. “Your grip probably won’t ever be the same, to be perfectly honest with you.”

She’d known the truth before he spoke it. Of course she’d never full heal. She wondered dimly if Bakuzan might ever be put to use again.

Another soft rapping at the door and three heads turned to find Soroi looking in tentatively from the threshold. “May I enter?” he asked. The question was unambiguously Satsuki’s to answer.

“Please. Come in, Soroi,” she said. “Mr. Mankanshoku, Mikisugi. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“Right. Get some rest,” Barazo told her as he sensed her quiet invitation to leave. “We’ll be back once the painkiller’s supposed to wear off. Just send for us if you need anything else.”

She nodded, too tired to speak, and the two men curtailed a tense energy away with them when they left her alone with her butler. Her posture slackened and she slumped back against the pillows stacked behind her. Soroi took a seat on the stool where Senketsu had watched over her from, and settled a small silver platter onto his lap.

“We thought you might be hungry,” he told her as he uncovered the bowl resting on the tray. It was soup, and there was a cup of tea just beside it. “We weren’t sure if you’d be able to eat solids yet.”

With a shaking hand Satsuki made to touch her throat, but stopped her fingers short of their target when she realized she wouldn’t be able to extend them any further than she already had. The cold pressure of phantom fingers constricting her neck left her hard of breath. She remembered the way they’d crushed bruises into her skin. Despite all logic telling her otherwise—in those moments when her vision greyed and her head spun and her lungs ached—she’d been certain Ragyo intended on killing her. She swallowed and felt the movement pushing out against the marks on her skin as her throat bobbed.

Soroi fed her without raising any attention to her debility, undertaking the task with the same professional grace he would any other. She allowed him to take care of her, and both her gratitude and frustration were palpable in the air between them. When she finished—two thirds of the way through the bowl, suddenly nauseated at the intake of so much food at once—he set the platter down onto the small table by her bedside, and she turned her head up to look out the single window in the room. It was well into night.

“Is she gone?” She couldn’t help herself from asking that question.

Soroi met her with a long pause, during which she dared not remove her gaze from the rounded window.

“… No, my lady,” he told her after a time. A weight pulled Satsuki’s world down and she couldn’t tell for a minute if the ship was still floating above water. She felt a million miles below sea level, as though constricted by pressure from all sides. “I’m afraid she isn’t.”

She was shocked at how strongly her despair came crashing into her. If only she had her hands still—then perhaps she’d have felt differently. There would have been hope still to take her head. But every day the odds of that woman dying seemed to slip further and further away. How futile were her efforts, that the better part of thirteen years could be irrecoverably unraveled in less than a month? Nothing was salvageable. Almost nothing.

Satsuki cried for the first time in a long while. Quietly at first, and then her shoulders shook and her lip trembled and a sob broke as she gasped for air. Soroi pulled her to him, and held her gently in his arms. She cried into his jacket tears that had backed and built without release, the kind of crying that fell out all at once and spun out of control. Her chest was heaving.

“Breathe with me. It’s going to be all right,” he told her. Despite her pitiful state, his voice somehow retained its composure—maybe with a tad more softness. She’d failed herself. “Breathe. You’ll make yourself ill.”

He was right. Her head hurt and her stomach clenched like she was about to vomit and her lungs refused to draw in air for several seconds. When she tried to bring something positive to mind to calm herself down, she froze up in a panic, because there was absolutely nothing. Her chance at a rebellion was gone. Her chance for vengeance was gone. She wasn’t even sure she could walk on her own. Her purpose had been leeched away so quickly nothing had had the time yet to fill its place.

And the monster still lived.

When the tears ebbed her head felt heavy and her body drained. She might have apologized to Soroi several times as he helped her lay back down, but her mind was so fogged up she wasn’t certain of what thoughts stayed in her head, and which ones she vocalized. He squeezed her shoulder in parting as she started to fall asleep. His hand lingered, and she thought he might raise it to her brow or clasp her hand, but he drew it away with a few warm whisperings she only half-registered.

* * *

 

Pain woke her a few hours later. It needled her everywhere—in her back, her sides, her limbs, her head. Instinctively, she pressed her hands against the mattress to push herself up, and almost cried out at the jolt it sent up her arm. Her wrists were too fragile to handle that sort of pressure. Relying on the strength of her core didn’t prove much better thanks to the bruises and broken ribs. 

Swinging her legs out over the edge of the bed provided a small sense of victory. There were two glasses sitting on the table beside her, and with them, a small piece of paper, tented upright, that read, “Take this for the pain if it gives you trouble”. The handwriting was foreign to her. One of the glasses was filled with water, and in the other sat a small amount of white powder—a crushed tablet, she realized. Straws stuck out from both of them so that she could take the painkiller without using her hands. It was a thoughtful gesture, and yet she couldn’t help but feel as though it chipped away her pride. There were only so many pieces of it left to hold onto.

She followed the edge of the table for support when she finally stood up, and then braced herself along the wall as she walked, until she reached what she assumed to be the door leading to the bathroom. Her knees were wobbling by the time she fell back onto the lid of the toilet. She winced at that, surely because her backside was completely bruised over. When she pulled off her pants—slowly, and with much effort, no thanks to her hands—she tried not to look at her legs, but the deep purple splotches running along and between her thighs were hard to miss.

She regretted getting out of bed without waiting for the painkillers to kick in first. It was almost too much to stand back up again. She caught her reflection in the mirror, and instantly regretted that, too. The markings around her neck were more hideous than she had imagined, and she understood now why Soroi hadn’t been sure if she’d be able to eat. The very corners of the whites of her eyes were splotched bright red, vessels ruptured. Coupled with the pallor in her cheeks, it gave her a rather ghoulish semblance. The rest of her face, though, was unmarred. They looked too much alike, and Ragyo was too vain to disfigure her.

Her trip back to the bed was surprisingly easier on her legs, like she’d remembered how to use them in the span of time since she’d gotten up, and she didn’t find herself relying on the wall as much to keep herself steady. It was likely the painkiller taking effect.

She took a seat over the sheets and deliberated as to how she was going to tuck herself successfully back into bed with as little hurt as possible. She didn’t have to agonize over it for long. Two soft taps to the metal door before the handle turned, and it opened just a crack. Ryuko peeked into the room.

“H-Hey,” she said, scooting the rest of the way inside. Her own intrusion seemed to surprise her more than it did Satsuki. “I didn’t know if you’d be up.”

“I was sleeping until just a short while ago.” She cleared her voice halfway through her sentence when it came out a bit hoarse. There were innumerable question on her mind that Ryuko could provide answers to, but the first one to leave her lips, without her much thinking, was, “What time is it?”

“Ah—four in the morning, I think. Last I checked,” she said.

“Shouldn’t you be getting rest?” The question hung in the air, and they both knew that Satsuki had already figured why she was up.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Neither could I.”

Ryuko shifted her weight from foot to foot as she seemed to mull something over. Satsuki let the silence stretch for as long as she needed, until Ryuko seemed to have made up her mind.

“I wanna talk to you,” she said, and her voice was firm and confident.

“Sure. Ask whatever you’d like.”

She’d expected this—had thought about this sort of moment countless times in the past few weeks. Sometimes, it was a dream that lit hope in her chest. Other times, it plagued her with worry over all the damage she’d already done to their cause.

“Let’s do this outside,” Ryuko told her. “You could probably use some fresh air.”

Satsuki braced herself and slid her feet slowly back onto the ground. Just as she stood up, Ryuko moved forward, arms extended, either in silent offer of support, or to prepare herself to catch her if she faltered. Satsuki held her own hand out to indicate she didn’t need the help. Ryuko shuffled an awkward few steps back, retracting her arms. She turned towards the door and held it open for her as she steadily made her way out the room.

They walked down the hallway in silence, and Ryuko had to slow her pace every now and then so as not to leave her behind. The quiet might have been awkward, but focused as she was on keeping herself upright, Satsuki didn’t pay it much notice. It made her feel strong again to be walking about.

She accepted Ryuko’s help when they had to take a flight of stairs to the upper deck of the ship. The slight numbness in her hand made for an odd feeling when their skin brushed, and her fingers twitched unnaturally in Ryuko’s grip when she held on too tightly. She caught her expression when they pulled apart at the top of the stairs. Ryuko’s jaw was clenched and her eyebrows just starting to furrow. Emotional restraint had never been her strong suit.

Their feet hung out over the edge of the upper deck as they sat side by side, looking out over the ocean. The moon was easily bright enough to see by, and a soft breeze tousled Satsuki’s hair. Ryuko had been right—staying much longer in the confines of a closed room would have started to drive her mad. The night air made her feel more alive by the minute.

“Did you know?” Ryuko asked eventually.

She swallowed. “Of course I didn’t.”

“I dunno, you had no problem lying to me about a bunch of other shit, so I really wouldn’t be surprised.” She was used to the derisive tone—had heard it time and time again when they’d fought—but it really stung now. She felt herself frowning.

“Butt out, or I’m leaving you inside,” Ryuko added a beat later, with less bite. “You’re only here in case of an emergency.” She realized she was addressing Senketsu. Ryuko then turned to her and said, “I’m not about to cut you some slack, and let everything slide just ‘cause you’re in rough shape right now.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. You have every right to be angry with me.”

Ryuko seemed not to know what to say to that. Perhaps she had expected more of an argument. She turned her gaze to the horizon again.

“I can’t justify the way I treated you. Even if I attempted to do so, it wouldn’t make it right,” she continued. “Telling you that I regret using you the way I did—because I was foolish enough to believe it the only option—wouldn’t absolve me, either. It was wrong. I was wrong, and perhaps I still am. I don’t deserve to ask for your forgiveness, so I won’t ask it of you. But if my word counts for anything, I promise you that I’ll make myself a better person.” She looked up to make sure she held her gaze as she spoke. “I’m sorry, Ryuko. If you’ll have me, as an ally at the very least, it would mean the world.” She dared not hope for anything more than that at the moment.

Ryuko’s expression maintained neutrality for the better part of a minute before she closed her eyes, and her features softened. “Geez, you couldn’t let me lay into you for five seconds before pulling out the heavy artillery?” A dusting of color had risen to her cheeks, but she didn’t let whatever had gotten her flustered interfere with her going on, “… I’m not even that mad at you, to be honest. I was at first. I was mad at everything and everyone, but then a couple weeks went by. I’ve had time to think. And to mouth off at a dozen different people, only to regret it later. I’m done yelling.”

Tension melted away from places Satsuki hadn’t known she’d been holding it, and she almost sighed with relief at Ryuko’s answer. How many times had she thought those words over and over to herself in her captivity? How many times had she envisioned the worst-case scenario? It would have hurt her more than all the injuries to her body combined.

“I’m not sure I can forgive you yet,” Ryuko said. “But I’m not opposed to a fresh, or fresher, start. And we don’t have much of a choice, really. The three-ring circus act that’s our mother is still out there.”

Satsuki didn’t particularly like the direction the conversation was headed in, but Ragyo wasn’t a problem they could afford to ignore. “Soroi told me,” she said. “I’m a bit wary she hasn’t reared her head yet.”

“We blew up a lot of shit a few days ago, when we went in to get you. Maybe that set her back.”

“Whatever it is, it’s buying us more time to form a plan.” She wondered who had been taking charge of things in her absence. She had yet to see any of the Elites or Shiro since she’d woken up from her semi-comatose state several hours ago. It felt as though infinitely more time had passed since then.

“I thought it’d be a good idea to go away a while,” Ryuko told her. “Just to recuperate a little. But the Elites didn’t want to make such a big decision without you.”

“They were right to wait. Running away won’t make a difference. The sooner we strike back, the less time she has to get things ready on her end. We’re not the only ones who benefit from the extra time.”

“You won’t be able to fight.”

Her hands hardly shook when she moved them now compared to the way they did when Ryuko had first set her free of her bindings. Feeling flowed a bit more freely against her skin, too, but that didn’t change the fact that she still couldn’t stretch out her fingers, or curl them into a fist. “That’s something no amount of time may be able to fix.”

“Don't be all dramatic. Carpal tunnel goes away.”

“I’m just stating the facts. My radial nerves are affected, too, so it’ll take a while for them both to heal. And even then, my hands probably won’t be strong enough to stand a chance against her.” Ryuko stayed silent, so she continued, “But I’ll do everything in my power to prepare a successful attack. I’m not entirely out for the count.”

Ryuko bumped her shoulder up against hers, catching her off guard for an instant. She was smiling at her—a real smile, not her usual cocky flashing of teeth. She felt her heart speed in her chest. Ryuko never ceased to surprise her. In one conversation alone, she’d seen her back onto her feet, and helped her breathe again. The world was starting to shift back into focus and something bloomed up in the hollow her mother—their mother—had ripped out of her. She knew she wasn’t so easily beaten; she’d only needed a reminder, a reason to fight again after being thrown off balance. The young woman sitting by her side, and whatever was growing between them, was more than reason enough. Before she’d even known who she was, she’d been the reason, or part of it, at least. So was everyone else aboard the Naked Sol, everyone who’d helped pull her from that place.

They sat together to see the sunrise through—not always speaking, but always curiously drinking in the other’s presence—asking each other questions every now and then. She was surprised that Ryuko didn’t probe more about family matters. Maybe that was a topic best reserved for another time. She forced herself to believe there would be a later to look forward to, when the rest of the mess had cleared away.

* * *

 

“I hate this plan.” 

The Naked Sol would charge back into Honnouji’s bay come morning. Satsuki would stay onboard while Ryuko led the attack against Ragyo. That had been the plan since they’d conceived in three days earlier. But now her recovery was palpable enough—arms hurting less, bruises greening over, appetite swelling—that she wondered what difference a few days more might make to tip the scales.

“Quit worrying,” Ryuko told her softly. “You know it’s the best one we got.”

Yes, she knew as much. She knew that waiting or running would aggravate their chances at victory because she’d said so herself when she pitched their options. But reason hardly found a place in her head with only a few short hours before Ryuko would leave without her.

They lay together on the narrow cot in her room. Ryuko had slipped in halfway through the night, and it’d seemed the only thing to do—to hold open the covers as she shimmied into the small space beside her. A primal urge to touch saw her cradling Ryuko’s face, and stoking her hair, albeit a bit clumsily. Ryuko caressed the inside of her forearm in turn. It felt nice to be so close. The dark and the quiet blanketed them in a safety that melted away barriers, and the air warmed between them.

But they’d broken the silence once, and now she felt she couldn’t stop. “You could die,” she said.

“So could you,” Ryuko pointed out. But the odds weren’t really comparable.

“I should be with you. Fighting alone against her—it’s absurd. I had to learn that the hard way.”

“I’ll have Senketsu with me,” she assured her. “And everyone else for backup.”

That did little to convince her. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Ragyo would seek out Ryuko alone, and that the battle would be decided between them. Their mother knew no mercy. Satsuki was frightened for her sister, and even more terrified that she’d lose her so soon after having just found her.

Ryuko’s hand moved up along her arm, and stopped where the handcuffs had gnawed at her skin. She turned and placed her lips there, against the inside of her wrist. “I won’t die.”

Her breath caught in her throat and she forced herself to swallow. “You don’t know that for certain.”

“I’ll come back to you.” Ryuko spoke like it’d become a certainty if she said it with enough conviction. “I’ll come back and we’ll have all the time in the world.” She nodded mutely even though she wasn’t persuaded.

Ryuko must’ve sensed her continued distress, because she brought her hand up against her face to prompt her to meet her gaze. Satsuki only cradled her closer, for some irrational fear that she might disappear if she stopped holding and touching her for even a moment. The feeling of Ryuko’s skin against hers warmed her, and even though the nights this far bellow deck were typically cold, she found herself quickly overheating. She couldn’t stop touching—her face, her shoulders, her arms, her back, her sides. The need was never sated.

“Satsuki.”

Her name brought her attention away from Ryuko, and towards the realization that her breathing was coming in short labored huffs. It was her body tiring of being lain on her side for so long. Her ribs couldn’t handle the pressure well. Ryuko’s hand against her shoulder helped guide her onto her back, and immediately her breathing eased. A pain in her chest she hadn’t realized was there lifted away, but the weight of her distress still sat heavily over her. She pulled Ryuko gently back into her arms to try and sooth it away.

“I want you to stay here.” She surprised herself by saying so, because her thoughts were usually filtered much better than that. Maybe she was tired, to say such a selfish thing. Maybe her brain didn’t know what to do with all the jumbled emotions Ryuko kindled in her.

“I’m right here, yea?” she whispered. Ryuko took her hand in hers and brought it to her heart so she could feel it beating against her breast. She pressed their foreheads together and let go of her hand—Satsuki kept it there, where she could feel that steady thrum—and stroked her hair. “My alien heart won’t stop doing its thing anytime soon.”

Her hand then shifted lower, until she reached the hem of Satsuki’s shirt. Satsuki pulled the fabric up over her belly herself, inviting Ryuko’s fingers to go on with whatever they’d set out to do. They found her ribs, and feathered around them lightly so as not to hurt her. The bruised skin there was healing nicely, but remained tender still.

“You made it out alive,” Ryuko said, looking down at where she touched her injured side. “So I at least owe it to you to do the same.” She tried a small smile, too, but something in it was missing.

It was meant as reassurance, but that statement invited her imagination to conjure up scenes that had her physically nauseated. She pictured Ryuko in the cage in her place, how easy it would be for Ragyo to rile her up, and the million ways she would delight in hurting her. So long as she breathed, she would ensure that woman never laid a hand on her.

“No. I promise I won’t let her hurt you that way,” she said. “Even if it means crawling back in there in this shape, I won’t let her so much as pull a hair from your head. I’d sooner do it all over again than—”

“Shhh,” Ryuko quieted her as she nuzzled against her cheek to sooth her. “I know. It won’t come to that.” Satsuki brought one hand against her hair, holding her close to her neck, and with the other worked her way beneath her shirt to touch her back. The skin there was smooth and soft and too easy to imagine inflicting harm on. Ryuko squirmed and shifted against her every time she ran her nails along the dip of her spine.

Her breath caught when she kissed her neck, tracing the serpentine bruises there first with her lips, and then the tip of her tongue. Her hand sought to fist into her hair, but her fingers were too weak to find purchase. Her heart swelled and her head swam at being shown such gentle affection. The shared heat of their bodies pressed together beneath the blanket was starting to make her fevered.

As soon as Ryuko drew her attention away from her neck, Satsuki found herself peeling off her shirt, which had ridden up beneath her breasts, not without a bit of help when she couldn’t pull it over her head. Ryuko’s shirt soon joined her own against the floor. And when she lay back down against her, careful not to rest too much of her weight on her ribs, the way their bellies skimmed tickled pleasantly. She’d never felt anything so soft as Ryuko’s breasts brushing against her own. Their world felt safe. It made her want to see Ryuko go even less.

A small part of her subconscious—a part that wasn’t preoccupied with processing the overwhelming sense that this night would be the first and last she shared with Ryuko—scolded her for her lack of prudence. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought of Ryuko this way before, because she had, be it as it may that she’d pushed it away. But the thought that their relation as sisters might be compromised as a result scared her. That was something she wasn’t willing to give up.

The thought had come too late. There was no backing away now, not with how she shifted against the steady press of Ryuko’s hip between her legs. Not with the way Ryuko breathed hotly as she straddled her thigh. Her cheeks were flushed and she whined needily when Satsuki reached down to touch her.

Her hand was too weak to keep up any semblance of rhythm or pressure, but going by the slickness coating her fingers, it didn’t matter much. She stroked Ryuko’s face and whispered her tender musings against her ear—marveled at how easily she was made to grind down harder, wetter against her hand, more vocal with every curl of her fingers.

Satsuki’s hand was starting to ache and cramp and she put effort into not letting it show.

But Ryuko must have noticed because she found her wrist and gently pulled her fingers out of her. Within the next second, she sat herself up, and Satsuki was about to protest until she realized she was kicking down her pants. They lost themselves somewhere at the foot of the bed, between the sheets and the blanket.

Satsuki then took her hands in her own, and guided them to her hips. Ryuko bent down to kiss the sensitive skin below her navel, and hooked her fingers into her waistband to drag it lower. She followed its path with her lips, back and forth along where the elastic had left little grooves in her skin, before trailing further down still.

She lifted herself up to help slide off her pants properly, and then Ryuko settled between her legs, hair feathering softly against her thighs. She paused just long enough to lay kisses along the bruises there, and didn’t waste a second more.

Satsuki shuddered at the hot feeling of her breath against her. She gasped when she licked a slow, broad stroke with her tongue pressed to her center. Again and again, in patterns and circles until she was a writhing, whining mess, shifting her hips to urge her attention a bit higher. When Ryuko obliged her she knew she might not last much longer. Her hand found her hair. She keened, wishing she’d pick up her pace. But Ryuko held her steady with her arms wrapped around her thighs, parting her with her fingers, lapping against her as slow as ever. She suddenly drew away when Satsuki’s breathing grew short. And then she came right back, to softly kiss her lips, tender and open-mouthed.

She’d always found the turn of phrase sappy, but in that moment, Satsuki swore she felt her heart melt. She sat up and pulled Ryuko up to kiss her, tasting herself over her lips and against her tongue. She held her face and refused to let go, until Ryuko resigned and followed her back down against the mattress.

“Promise me,” she said, surprising herself with the fierceness in her voice. “Promise me you’ll come back.”

“I promise, I promise,” Ryuko murmured between kisses. She wedged their legs together, spreading Satsuki beneath her as she readjusted her weight.

She sighed into their kiss at the sudden intimacy—face-to-face, hands free to grab and pet and hold close, bared open under her. And Ryuko’s wet warmth against her, the slick softness as she moved her hips to rub them together, had her muffling cries into the crook of her neck.

“Sats—Satsuki,” she gasped. She pressed her hips up in time with Ryuko’s. “F-Fuck, Satsuki.”

She seemed to take pleasure in saying her name, because once she’d started, she wouldn’t stop. She worked herself up every time it left her lips, and it excited Satsuki, to feel her growing wetter against her for it. When she pawed at Ryuko’s chest, played with and pinched her nipples any way she could manage, she was rewarded with a hiss caught on the tail end of a whine. Her legs shook and her pace stuttered and few sounds were more erotic than the way she moaned within a breath of her release.

“N- _Nee-san_.” She climaxed over the word, drawing it out in the air between them, without stopping the roll of her hips against her.

That unraveled Satsuki quicker than she knew she could come undone. Her toes curled and the pressure built in her came flooding out with the softest cry. And Ryuko continued to whisper it softly against her ear when she saw the effect of it on her. “Nee-san, Nee-san,” she repeated until her head cleared. And then she said it between the kisses she peppered under her jaw as her breathing evened.

Ryuko slid back into the space between her legs, and the weight of her against her chest was starting to hurt. She shifted her gently to the side, so she was resting mostly on the mattress, and then busied herself pushing back the strands of hair slickened against her forehead with sweat.

She felt frustrated with the limitations of her own body once again when she thought of how she would love to shower affection over Ryuko still until the sun rose, and yet knew her body was too weak to handle any more exertion. But judging by the way Ryuko melted happily against her, eyes already half-fluttered closed, she’d provided more than enough. She marveled at how someone who seemed so small in her arms, someone with such a fiery temper, could ground her so.

She knew Ryuko could hold her own against Ragyo despite everything, and she had no choice but to believe that things would somehow work out tomorrow. Satsuki drew up the blanket over them and reveled in the warmth of their naked bodies pressed together. The chill of the room when they stood in the morning would rob away that comforting heat. She doubted she’d be able to pry them apart without tearing away something of herself in the process. Let Ryuko carry it with her when she went off to fight.

In the mean time, she burrowed down beneath the sheets, and allowed herself to murmur back “ _Imouto_ ” for every time Ryuko had called her in kind. They had enough to make up for, with all the years that had robbed them of the privilege. She kissed her tenderly to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to title this _Fuite_ , which translates as both "flight/escape" and "a leak". But while I was walking home in the rain last night, Laura Mvula's "I Don't Know What the Weather Will Be" came on. It's such a lovely song, and I felt the sentiment behind it fit impeccably with this piece, so I changed the title with it in mind (though it doesn't directly reference any of the lyrics).
> 
> I tried to balance Satsuki's usual unwavering strength of will against realistic effects of the treatment she was put through. Hopefully her vulnerability isn't too misplaced.


End file.
